It’s been a while between updates, I got a bit distracted from my painting by finally getting around to playing Cyberpunk 2077 and getting absolutely hooked on it. There’s a recommendation for you if you’re interested in the genre at all!
Back on topic, here’s the second batch of models for my Cult of Slaanesh army, mounted Daemonettes! I’ve got them all lined up above but they’ll be deployed in two units of 5. Maybe cyberpunk had an influence on me in my painting because these are very pink!
I actually painted them to match the Keeper of Secrets I painted a while back, and I think they ended up pretty close if a bit more saturated. At the time I had no army to put the Keeper in, so I imagined a snow scheme for its basing. I’ll probably rebase it at some stage in the future to match these.
On to how these were painted. Contrast paints did a lot of heavy lifting here, they’re extremely good for organic forms, and daemons are mostly that! I started with an all over coat of Magos Purple Contrast on both riders and steeds, with the steeds receiving a second coat to differentiate them a bit by making them darker. I then applied Volupus Pink Contrast over the scaly areas of the steeds as well as the claws and feet of the Daemonettes. Talons, horns, and hair were all given a coat of Black Templar Contrast, and the tongues of the steeds were picked out in Flesh Tearers Red Contrast. I then picked out the metallic areas with Scale 75 Black Metal.
I then did some highlights over the skin of the Daemonettes and the non-scaly parts of the steeds using Vallejo Game Color Squid Pink. This was applied in multiple light coats (semi opaque, so quite dilute) to create transitions that weren’t too harsh. The black areas were then quickly highlighted with Vallejo Game Stonewall Grey. I picked out the eyes of the Daemonettes in black and of the steeds in yellow and did a very light overall wash/filter of a purple oil paint (Daler Rowney Permanent Mauve) to tie the lot together and smooth out some of the rougher highlights. Overall then this was quite a quick process, and given the amount of effort I put in I’m quite happy with how they look.
Hopefully the next update is faster than this one, Cyberpunk 2077 is finished but who knows what other distractions lurk!
After our last scenario/narrative based game (Battle Report: A Rat in the Woods) we knew we wanted to do something similar again. That is over a few months paint a couple of armies, create a scenario that involves them, and some terrain to suit, then when all of that is done, play the game! We threw a few ideas around, but in the end settled on an idea triggered by the Storm of Chaos book from 6th edition Warhammer. At the end of that book is an army list for the Cult of Slaanesh, which is a really fun list that combines the Dark Elves with the Hordes of Chaos armies and represents the forces of the Morathi (The top Dark Elf sorceress for the uninitiated!) when she re-kindles the cult to the chaos god Slaanesh amongst her Dark Elf followers and joins up with other Slaanesh worshippers (of the human variety!).
During the events the Storm of Chaos book relates, Morathi takes her forces to Lustria (Pretty much Warhammer South America) to hunt for Artefacts of the Old Ones. The locals, the Lizardmen, don’t take kindly to such things and a conflict starts. My friend having a relatively large unpainted Lizardmen army and myself having many chaos models lying about we decided this was a good fit for us and started planning. So far we have both written army lists (3000 points!), although we have as yet to come up with a fun scenario to use these armies in!
3000 points is a fair amount of Warhammer to paint although both our respective armies are quite elite and therefore the model counts are at the lower end. Regardless it will take a while to paint everything so time to get started!
First up then I decided to paint a regiment of Chaos Marauders. These are at the bottom end of the chaos pile being pretty much just regular humans (although very muscly already!). They were a good starting point for the army however as being basic troops I’m not too worried if they don’t look fantastic, which meant I could experiment. Being Slaanesh worshippers (although not being recognised enough to get any cool powers for their devotion!) I wanted to paint them as recognisably so, hence the purply/magenta cloth and the Slaanesh symbol on the banner.
The models are quite old now and it shows in the lack of details in the casts, but I think they’re quite characterful and enjoyed painting them. You’ll notice the champion stands out a lot, he’s a head taller, and is a much newer model. He’s a character from the Silver Tower board game originally although he was later released as a standalone model for Age of Sigmar. I’ve had him for a while and just had to include him in this regiment.
I usually make a painting guide when I start a new army so I have a reference I can come back to as I invariably jump between projects. I haven’t bothered here as this is the only unit of marauders the army will have, and all other humans in the army will be in the full armour of Chaos Warriors and have little to no exposed skin. When I come to painting elves I might do some guides then.
Here’s the short version: contrast paints did a lot of heavy lifting here, tackling the furs, leather and cloth (black and purple) mostly untouched. The only areas with proper highlights are the skin, the metallics and the horns. This is less effort than I usually put into my models but I was painting all 16 at once and I think you can get away with some shortcuts in ranked units!
What I do want to document however as it will be repeated on the whole army is the basing.
I knew I was going to be doing some jungle themed bases for the army to fit the setting we want to set the game in. I’ve done some jungle bases in the past for my Necrons (Jungle Bases pt. 1, Jungle Bases pt. 2), and a fair few temperate forest bases recently for my Star Wars Legion army (Endor bases) and my Lord of the Rings Wood Elves (Wood Elves of Lothlorien and Rivendell). I wanted to try something different on this new set of models and went with a classic: gluing aquarium plants as is.
I’ve never really liked the look of the bare plastic, as they look too shiny next to painted models, but I took the gamble that as I would be matt varnishing the models, the leaves would be tied in to the overall scheme. I think it worked well and I’m happy with the way the unit looks when all ranked up.
You’ll also notice some other details on the bases such as spiders and ruins, these are from an old Games Workshop basing kit which had resin pieces for basing amongst other basing bits. These were glued down and painted with the model. The rest of the basing was done after the models were painted.
Here are the steps for the bases:
Hot glue individual leaves from the aquarium plants to the bases
Cover the bases in texture paint (AK Muddy Ground)
Stick down some small stones
Apply some AK Slimy Grime Dark in patches on the ground and the rocks
Apply some AK Slimy Grime Light in smaller patches. Note this stands out much more so I diluted it with some thinner to help blend it in some.
The base is matt varnished along with the rest of the model
Patches of AK Puddles are applied randomly to add the impression the ground is quite wet
Anyway I hope you like them! I’m always excited when I start a new project (otherwise I wouldn’t;t have started it!), and am already eyeing off the next unit for the army.
Lair of the Lagomorph 